Outreach Pastor Gene Kissinger earned a B.S. in education from CU and holds a master’s degree in theology from Fuller Seminary. He’s been on staff at CHCC for over 20 years in the areas of missions and outreach. He oversees, at a macro level, the overall vision and direction of outreach and missions at Cherry Hills and has a passion for mobilizing, training, sending and caring for long-term cross-cultural workers going out from the church to our city, our nation and our world.

Gene’s spiritual journey began as a child growing up in a religious home. “But I didn’t understand what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus until I met my wife, Lorna,” he says. “It was her struggle with issues of faith in Christ that led my heart to be open to hearing the truth of the Good News when we visited Cherry Hills the first Sunday of 1983. I accepted Christ under Jim Dixon’s teaching the following week.”

When Gene and Lorna joined the church, Gene was in the oil business, which was in serious decline in the early ’80s. “I decided to shut down my business,” he says. “While trying to figure out what to do when I grew up, Jim Dixon suggested I volunteer for the missions committee.” It didn’t take long before Gene knew that ministry is what the Lord had created him for. The role slowly evolved from volunteer to part-time paid staff member to his current full-time position.

Gene’s interests are many and varied. “Lorna and I love to travel, both for ministry and personally,” he says. “We enjoy movies, hanging out with friends and family, and simply being together. I enjoy cooking, reading and golf.”

An interesting fact about Gene: he is a certified scuba diver.